PHOTO: AFP
Death toll of Pakistani pilgrims in Mina stampede has reached 45, the state-run Pakistan Television reported on Tuesday.
Quoting Minister for Religious Affairs Sardar Muhammad Yousaf, the channel reported that 53 Pakistanis were still missing. The minister, however, said all-out efforts were being made to find all the missing Pakistanis as all the phone numbers of the helpline were fully operational.
Yousaf said, out of total 39 injured Pakistanis, 29 had been discharged from hospitals while 10 were still under medical treatment. He said some Pakistani pilgrims who lost their lives in Mina were buried in Saudi Arabia.
He said the helpline number 00966593965613 can be contacted to get any information about Pakistani Hujjaj. “I am in Saudi Arabia to supervise all the operation and to find Pakistanis who are still missing,” the minister said.
Read: Saudi prince’s convoy triggered Hajj stampede: report
The death toll rose after bodies of four more Pakistani pilgrims, who went missing following the Mina stampede, were identified on Tuesday.
Talking to The Express Tribune, MNA Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry – the prime minister’s focal person on Mina incident – said these four pilgrims were among those 59 Pakistanis who had gone missing after the incident. “Out of these 22 had gone on the government quota while the remaining 37 travelled privately,” he said.
However, the Ministry of Religious Affairs has not updated the list of the deceased and injured on its website since September 27 from 8:30 pm onwards. The list shows outdated data which is not helpful for the relatives of the Mina incident victims.
Punjab Assembly
A resolution was submitted in the Punjab Assembly on Tuesday, demanding that a protest be lodged with the Saudi government over the slow-paced efforts to deliver information regarding casualties in the Mina incident.
Submitted by the opposition leader from Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Mian Mehmoodur Rasheed, the resolution expresses grief over the incident in which the death toll has risen to over 1,000.
Read: At least 717 pilgrims killed, 863 injured in Hajj stampede at Mina
It says delay in timely communication of information regarding the dead and the injured has caused much stress to thousands of families of the pilgrims in Pakistan.
Petition filed in LHC
A petition was also filed on Tuesday before the Lahore High Court (LHC), seeking directions for the Ministry of Religious Affairs to disclose all casualties of Pakistani pilgrims in the Mina stampede.
The petitioner, Arif Idrees, said international media has reported that 286 Pakistani pilgrims died in the incident but officials of the ministry were misleading people by trying to minimise the death toll.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 30th, 2015.
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